Skip to main content

Initiating an Apocalypse

The giddying heights, the abysmal lows.  Being published, being rejected.  Opposites make excellent fodder for stories.

I was cheered by the arrival of Calliope 144, Summer 2014.  My story, “Initiating an Apocalypse,” won third place in the contest for this issue, and, among other things, represents the first time my fiction has actually appeared in print form.  Heights!

The story is, as the editor instantly recognized, satire.  The plot revolves around a professor who lost his job and who wants the world to share his misery.  Having studied ancient religions (the protagonist is based on a friend of mine) our hero calls on the ancient gods to help exact his revenge.

In the background here is Zoroastrianism, perhaps the oldest continually practiced religion in the world.  The great god of the Zoroastrians was Ahura Mazda.  Since the world appeared to be governed by opposites, he had a foe who was totally evil: Angra Mainyu.  Zarathustra taught that the two were in constant conflict.

“Initiating an Apocalypse” imagines what might happen if the two gods came together today, in New Jersey.  As it always is with gods, the results are unpredictable.



As with most stories, there is much more going on beneath the words than there is on the surface.  This is a story about the despair of unemployment.  We’ve all seen those self-made moguls who claim losing their job was the best thing that ever happened to them.  Zair Thurston is not one of them.

The friend who gave me the idea for this story has gone through this.  He lost a teaching job due to a Fundamentalist takeover and has never recovered.  Some days I stop in and find him drink absinthe with the shades all pulled.  At least he hasn’t invited the gods back to destroy the world yet.

In the flush of excitement of having this story accepted, I sent out six more to other journals, optimistic of a little traction.  None of those were accepted.  Abyss!


Life is full of contradictions.  The life of the writer especially so.  At least when the world ends I’ll have one story that may survive on an actual bit of paper flapping around in the poison, post-apocalyptic air.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Patterns

  There’s a pattern I’m noticing.   For fiction publishers.   Even if you aim low you’ll find it a struggle.   Part of the reason is the pattern. Lots of websites list publishers.   The smaller, hungrier presses either eventually close or get to a place where they require an agent to get in.   That’s the kiss of death. Although my stories have won prizes, and been nominated for prizes, I can’t get an agent interested.   I’ve queried well over a hundred, so the agent route is one of diminishing returns.   This too is a pattern. Back to the smaller presses.   I check many lists.   What I write, you see, is highly idiosyncratic.   It’s literary but it’s weird.   Publishers don’t know what to do with it.   If a smaller press published stuff like this, I’d find it. The pattern includes writers who never get discovered.   Ironically, a number of editors of fiction literary magazines (mostly online) tell me they enjoy my wor...

Creative Righting

  Rejection of my writing is a rejection of my imaginative world.   That’s why I was cheered by the acceptance of one of my stories this week.   That makes number 31. I’ve been working on a lot of fiction lately, even as nonfiction book number 6 is going to press.   The ideas are still there, and bizarre as ever, but publishing venues just aren’t welcoming. The other day I had lunch with a professor whose wife is also a professor.   She just had her first novel published, and so he pointed me to her indie publisher.   I went to their website to learn that they’re closed to submissions.   I have to admit that my latest accepted story, “Creative Writing Club,” was probably given the green light because I know the editor.   That seems like a pretty dicey way to get any notice, doesn’t it?   You have to know the right people even in the low circulation world. My fiction is difficult to classify.   It’s got speculative elements to it.   ...

Maybe Okay

  A couple pieces of encouraging news, perhaps, dear struggling writers.   I had a couple short stories accepted for publication in recent weeks.   As a fellow writer recently said, “You've got to keep trying.  Somebody will like what you wrote.” That’s a bit of sunshine.   And it’s likely true.   But the stories:   “The Crossing,” about two men in a boat trying to cross the Atlantic, was accepted by JayHenge Publishing.   JayHenge is a small, but paying publisher.   I was flattered when they wanted it for their Masque & Maelström: The Reluctant Exhumation of Edgar Allan Poe anthology.   Being associated with Poe in any way feels good. The second story, “St. Spiders’ Day,” had been brewing in my mind for years—yes, this is a long game!   A friend pointed me to The Creepy podcast.   Since the story hadn’t been written, I followed their guidelines of what they wanted.   It worked. I recently heard a successful wri...